What Does The Prayer Really Say?
W D T P R S

This is not a new piece, but it is amusing, especially for anyone who has either a) had to teach or b) lived in Europe.

The European Language Commission has just announced an agreement whereby English will be the official language of the European Union rather than German, which was the other possibility.

As part of the negotiations, the British Government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a 5- year phase-in plan that would become known as “”Euro-English”“.

In the first year, “”s”” will replace the soft “”c”“. Sertainly, this will make the sivil servants jump with joy.

The hard “”c”” will be dropped in favour of “”k”“. This should klear up konfusion, and keyboards kan have one less letter.

There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year when the troublesome “”ph”” will be replaced with “”f”“. This will make words like fotograf 20% shorter.

In the 3rd year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible.

Governments will enkourage the removal of double letters which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling.

Also, al wil agre that the horibl mes of the silent “”e”” in the languag is disgrasful and it should go away.

By the 4th yer people wil be reseptiv to steps such as replasing “”th”” with “”z”” and “”w”” with “”v”“.

During ze fifz yer, ze unesesary “”o”” kan be dropd from vords kontaining “”ou”” and after ziz fifz yer, ve vil hav a reil sensibl rite n styl.

Zer vil be no mor trubl or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi tu understand ech oza. Ze drem of a united urop vil finali kum tru.

Und efter ze fifz yer, ve vil al be speking German like zey vunted in ze forst plas.

If zis mad you smil, pleas pas on to oza pepl.

Zadock has a good post about the Holy Father’s address to the members of the Pontifical Council ‘Cor Unum’ in which Benedict is probably giving us a glimpse of the encyclical to be released on Wednesday. He beat me to it and so I tip him my biretta!

o{]:¬)

Here is something of what Zadock put on his site:

The letter will have two parts – one a theoretical analysis of love, the second having to do with eccleisal ‘caritas’. The Pope is particularly interested in the unity of these two themes. He intends to look at how we are created for love and how eros (especially between a man and woman) is interiorly transformed into agape and thus responds to the true nature of eros. On this basis, one can clarify the biblical concepts of love of God and neighbour. He will also show that agape is not simply something individual, but must become an essential act of the Church. He notes too that this is not something that is added ‘by chance’ to the Church but forms part of the nature of the Church. As word of human faith corresponds to the Divine Logos, so to the Agape which is Divine must corrspond the agape of the Church which is its charitable activity. This activity, in addition to practical help for one’s neighbour, includes in its essence communicating to others the love of God which we have revealed. It must make the living God visible in some way. God and Christ cannot be foreign words in charitable organization. They indicate the origin of ecclesial charity. The power of charity (Caritas) depends on the power of the faith of all members and collaborators.